@ProteinNerd, yeah I think that's probably right. These days in the west most farms are mechanized so there's no thing like the amount of horses around that there was in the 30's and 40's. So yeah, these days horse does seem a little exotic and elite I guess. Artisanal repro makers are using it because the jackets they are copying used horse back in the day when there were way more horses around, and especially during early WWII period when armies around the world started liquidating their supply of horses, making the hides literally a dime a dozen. I guess that's were the marketing of the wild stallion, the noble creature, comes in to create value in this horse hide market glut depressing prices, and the impact of that still remains I guess.